Day of Wages. 27th of the Dog Days, 526 M.E. (Helios): The outspoken feminist writer who I otherwise admire has not only taken down her post with misleading to downright factually incorrect climate data, but admitted it was a mistake. Even more, she still maintains that the current climate crisis "is the most important news today and part of the most important news this year, decade, and century. Be a climate activist. The climate needs you.," and replaced the misleading image with verifiably accurate maps and graphs in a revised post. 

Now I admire her even more. No more "otherwise."

We're still under heat advisories here in Atlanta. We hit a high of 93° degrees today with a heat index value of 96°. Helios is a walking day and I got my steps in today despite the heat, although I limited myself to a 6.8-mile Quincy.

Mike Allen of Axios had an interesting point in his morning newsletter email today, although he then discredited himself with some misguided "both sides-ism." He and co-author Jim VandeHei hypothesize that political party transformations follow a predictable six stages of evolution - recoil, squint, rationalize, submit, amplify, and purge. 

In Stage 1, the party Recoils from change, denouncing the new actors by name. For example, in 2016, Lindsey Graham called the Stable Genius a "kook," unfit for office, and Ted Cruz called him a "pathological liar." 

In Stage 2, "Squint," they support without looking too hard. "I haven't seen that tweet" became the Republicans go-to response during the Stable Genius' first term when they were asked about his social media posts. 

Stage 3, Rationalize, the "yes, but" stage, features statements like "I don't love the style, but the judges, the tax cuts, the border - he's a fighter." Accommodation becomes the norm, and justifications emerge for the means.

Submission is Stage 4, and dissent becomes career-ending. After Kevin McCarthy said that the Stable Genius bears responsibility for January 6, he had to fly to Mar-a-Lago to apologize. However, he's ousted as speaker three years later. Silence becomes political survival.

In Stage 5, Amplify, the party fully adopt the vocabulary, the style, and the maximalist claims. After privately calling the Stable Genius "America's Hitler" in 2016, JD Vance is now vice president and routinely seeks to show his own extremism, as does almost every Republican these days.

Finally, Stage 6, is the purge - actively oust anyone who disagrees. You either fully accept and amplify, or get exiled like Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Liz Cheney, Bill Cassidy, Thom Tillis, and John Cornyn, despite many of them voting with the Stable Genius 99% of the time.

An interesting theory, and well documented. But then came their "both sides-ism," aka "the other side is even worse." Citing a Gallup poll that socialism is more popular than capitalism among Democrats, they say that recent electoral victories by self-proclaimed "democratic socialists" are a sign of a political reorientation on the left that's going thorough the same, six-stage process.

First of all, it's misleading to frame what's happening on the left as socialism vs. capitalism, as if they were opposite things. Socialism is not the opposite of capitalism. The Gallup poll might as well ask if ham sandwiches are or aren't more popular than reruns of "Friends." One might have a higher polling number than the other, but that doesn't make them opposing things.  They certainly are not opposites.

I'll repeat that again slowly for those of you on drugs: socialism is not the opposite of capitalism. That would be communism - the opposite of capitalism is communism. Socialism, especially democratic socialism, merely wants to see the government-level profits of capitalism distributed more evenly among the people, and spent for the betterment of all instead of just the top profit generators. The opposite of democratic socialism might be oligarchy, or the reckless, unfettered capitalism of the Gilded Age "Robber Barons."

The Democratic Party may or may not be going thorough a transformation right now, or a new political party or ideology may be  emerging. If so, I welcome it. But to frame it as capitalism versus socialism is just fucking stupid, Allen. Do your goddamn home work and think, t-h-i-n-k, before hitting the "Send" button next time, you reactionary tool.

Did you learn NOTHING from the outspoken feminist writer who I admire?